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Egyptian women form strong contingent of opposition to draft constitution

At the core of opposition discontent in Egypt is a draft constitution that has no mention of protecting women’s equality, labour rights or definitive political freedoms.

An Egyptian woman listens to speakers in Tahrir Square in Cairo last week. Female protesters are worried their rights are not addressed in the draft constitution. (Maya Alleruzzo / AP)

By Jesse RosenfeldSpecial to the Star

Mon., Dec. 10, 2012

CAIRO — At the core of opposition discontent in Egypt is a draft constitution that has no mention of protecting women’s equality, labour rights or definitive political freedoms.

Among the tens of thousands of protesters who marched on the presidential palace in recent days, the anger of women demanding recognition was palpable. Alongside men, they descended on President Mohammed Morsi’s official residence, clambering over army barricades, swarming around tanks and spray-painting messages on the palace walls calling for the downfall of the recently elected Muslim Brotherhood.

“We have to kick out the religious fascists, The (Muslim) Brotherhood. At the same time we don’t want the army to rule” said Abla Sharif, a 38-year-old professor wearing a hijab and taking a lunch break around the corner from Tahrir Square on Friday. A regular activist during the 2011 revolution, Sharif sees Morsi’s failure to accommodate opposition to the draft constitution as a sign Egypt is moving back toward the authoritarian rule of the Mubarak era.

“They have created this situation,” said Sharif, who described herself as personally religious but politically secular.

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She said she is furious the constitutional process has so far not mentioned the rights of women, defined an age of majority for marriage or provided protections for workers.

For Dena Abdul Hazzem, an unveiled 31-year-old who lives in a wealthy Cairo neighbourhood and lectures at a private university, the concern is less about constitutional omissions than mistrust of political Islam. Shaking with rage over the five people killed in Wednesday’s clashes, Abdul Hazzem sees the events as a red line with no ability for reconciliation as long as the Brotherhood leads the government.

Abdul Hazzem said she is worried the Muslim Brotherhood is heading in the direction of violating private property rights and restricting personal freedoms.

“For the past six months before Morsi’s decree I was sitting at home and not doing anything political. When they force you to embrace their ideologies, it’s twisting your arm and so I have to go to the streets,” she said.

Mona Elwakel, a 42-year-old high school teacher and mother wearing the traditional headscarf and modest long coat, describes her husband as having been involved in planning the anti-Mubarak protests in January 2011, yet it is only now — in the new Egypt — that she has taken to the streets.

“Women have not been mentioned in the constitution, only in family and divorce. Seventy-five per cent of Egyptian women work and there is no mention about their rights in the constitution,” she said, in a crowd of thousands blockading the roads to the palace.

It is a mix of fear that the emerging freedoms of a post-Mubarak Egypt are being stunted and a newly instilled realization that winning rights requires turning the streets into the centre of political discourse that is making this crisis much bigger than constitutional wrangling.

While the anti-Mubarak protests of January and February 2011 didn’t compel Rania Adawi, a 33-year-old musician, to join people in Tahrir Square, the November 2011 bloody crackdown by the military against young and primarily left-wing protesters did.

“(I came out) to defend the freedom that I was feeling for the first time,” said Adawi. “Then the election runoff between Morsi and Shafik happened and I refused to vote.”

Adawi is generally supportive of the opposition coalition coming together and holds great respect for liberal opposition figure Mohammad Elbaradei. But for her, power brokering and negotiations between parties is no substitute for popular political participation.

“(Under Mubarak), Egyptians were not really concerned about the constitution, but after the revolution we needed to create a new agreement between the government and the people,” she said.

“What we are seeing (in the constitutional process) is what those drafting it think about us. We are not being represented.”

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